Transcription

1 Allstate Insurance Growing Commercial Business with an Intuitive Agent User Experience Case Study Overview: Tapping the Potential of 10,000 Agents Karen Furtado SMA Partner July % of untrained users were able to complete a quote within 16 minutes. 60% increase in commercial business quotes since roll-out of the pilot. 95% of the submitted quotes aligned to the commercial products available. Allstate s Challenge: Commercial Lines Allstate Business Insurance (ABI) is Allstate s commercial lines division. Their focus to date has been on small business operations that average $1,000 in premium per policy. They target 36 industry segments (150 SIC codes), which represent a market size of $10B. Commercial auto is currently their biggest line, while BOP is their profile growth line. Allstate works with approximately ten thousand agencies countrywide, reaching thirty thousand licensed sales producers, but only 20% of them were quoting commercial lines at least once a month and only 2% quoting weekly. Allstate s goal to significantly increase market share in commercial business was obstructed by a distribution channel that they could not activate. What Allstate needed was to find a way to activate the agent network and increase the number of agents quoting commercial business that matched Allstate s appetite. Based on agent feedback, Allstate identified their existing policy platform as one of the major hurdles preventing agents from quoting commercial business. The existing solution from Insurity, Connexus, was a powerful system capable of writing all lines and coverages but overwhelmed users with choices and options to enter the business. The solution did not consider that the majority of the risks that Allstate wanted to write were simpler risks that could be best serviced through a directed workflow addressing the specific risks that were desired. Significant investments had been made over the previous four years in the attempt to improve usability and intuitive flow, but they did not have the desired results of increased agent usage. Quotes were up, but complaints were still coming in from agents using the system. Allstate concluded that they could gain new perspective on the issue by collaborating with agents to design a new portal. Allstate kicked off their Commercial Agent project in May 2014, with a mission to change their approach to agent engagement and improve the user experience associated with the sales process. The objectives were twofold: to improve both the Project Timeline May 2014: project kick-off February 2015: initial roll-out of commercial auto to agent advisors April 2015: rolled out to licensed agents in Arizona and Tennessee; BOP added July 2015: nationwide roll-out SMA All Rights Reserved Page 1

2 user experience and to make the system intuitive enough for the most infrequent users to be able to use the system without training. They decided to completely redesign the user experience to facilitate rapid and accurate quoting. This would prove to be key to the project s ultimate success. Allstate also decided to limit the new system to specific products in specific growth lines and reduce complexity: BOP, commercial auto, and inland marine. To further simplify the user experience, guardrails would be designed based on the most common product coverages that they wanted to write as well as significant use of defaults and simplified risk classification. An Ambitious System Goal: 100% Accuracy Allstate s top-level vision for Commercial Agent, which was critical to the project s success, was very ambitious. From the beginning, the system goal was that a user with absolutely no training would be able to successfully generate a quote that would be 100% accurate. The system needed to train the user on the fly through the user experience and intuitive workflow. With that in mind, Allstate turned to invaluable resources: its agents and its software partner Insurity. The Innovative Approach: Collaboration There were two levels of collaboration invoked within this project. First was Allstate s decision to engage their agent network. Approximately 35 agents from Allstate s National Advisory Board (NAB) and other advisory groups were tapped to participate. Allstate and Insurity met with the agent group weekly via WebEx, where the project team presented proposed changes to the system flow and UI. Allstate used real-time voting creatively to obtain the agents feedback. Not only were agents polled on the improvements being presented, 70% of the agents had to vote before the meeting could proceed. The proposed fix was adopted only if 90% or more were in favor. The advisory group also planted the early seeds of support for the new solution in their role as influential members of the agent community. The second was the collaborative and iterative development approach Allstate took with Insurity. Joint teams were brought together at the beginning of the engagement to work through user experience options for the agents to consider. This development style was a shift for both companies, as previous development efforts were more waterfall-based, with requirements being handed off, developed, and then returned for testing. The teams combined the best business analysts and technical resources from both companies in addition to Allstate s user experience expert. Stepping away from their current perspective to create a new paradigm for the agent experience was fundamental to the project team s success. Agent feedback led Allstate to prioritize usability in the Commercial Agent project, and so agent involvement was built into the project from the start. That participation so shaped the end product that Allstate adopted Designed by agents, for agents as the tagline for the new system. Keeping It Simple: Intuitive Workflow and Guardrails One of the big issues with the Connexus workflows was that field and screen order was very open, allowing experienced users to determine their own navigation through SMA All Rights Reserved Page 2

3 the system but sometimes confusing less experienced users. Insurity and Allstate changed the flow of the application to match agents thought processes when submitting a quote. Commercial Agent would use separate screens to ask the most fundamental questions that an agent needed to answer: What business is being written? Who is the customer? What specific coverage is necessary? The idea was to reduce the number of fields that an agent needed to populate to under 30. That meant that the several hundred data points needed to write a policy had to come from other sources, be derived, or defaulted. Third-party data, from sources such as LexisNexis, MVR, VIN, Dun & Bradstreet, and MSB (now part of CoreLogic), along with additional logic, could provide many of those data points, including data that would be difficult for agents to obtain (for example, vehicle weight could easily be derived from VIN). The other means of reducing agent data entry was to set up guardrails that limited the options available for products that could be quoted through Commercial Agent. For instance, 95% of Allstate s commercial auto policies are for a very small number of vehicles sometimes just one instead of a fleet. Even if the user had the option to add an infinite number of vehicles, it would be used very rarely. Commercial auto quotes from Commercial Agent, then, were capped at four vehicles. BOP quotes were limited to one location. This allowed the system to be designed around this simplified set of scenarios, resulting in a more streamlined and intuitive flow. The Outcome: Exceptional Results We use anywhere from 800 to 1,000 data elements to write a commercial auto policy. To simplify the quoting experience, we brought that down to around 25, greatly reducing the amount of data that the agent has to enter. Wes Sprinkle Chief Operating Officer, Allstate Business Insurance Agents also played a critical role near the end of the Commercial Agent project, when Allstate created a usability lab to conclude its extensive testing. Half of the 30 agents selected for the lab were experienced Connexus users who wrote a significant amount of commercial business. The other half had never used Connexus and had never quoted commercial business before. Allstate evaluated the user experience for both groups through both quantitative and qualitative measures: the record of user clicks and completion time was combined with users responses to questions like How confident are you in the accuracy of the quote that you generated? When the results from the usability lab were ready, it was clear that Commercial Agent had passed the project usability testing with flying colors. On average, the users with no experience in either Connexus or commercial insurance could generate an accurate quote in 16 minutes without any training. One agent without commercial lines experience commented, This is way, way better than Connexus. Like 5,000 times better! The solution was initially rolled out to 32 agents from the advisory group in February 2015, supporting commercial auto only. In April, BOP was added and the solution was rolled out to agents in Arizona and Tennessee. For those agents using the system, quote activity jumped 60% in the first three weeks. When users tried to write business outside the guardrails, they received a message that directed users to the Allstate call center. As anticipated, call volume increased for a short time after roll-out. Before Commercial Agent was rolled out, most calls had been questions about how to use the Connexus system s many functions. After roll SMA All Rights Reserved Page 3

4 out, the call center was fielding calls from agents asking about the products rather than the system. More agents without commercial lines experience were now quoting commercial business, exactly the results that Allstate wanted. The results were clear: not only were agents generating more quotes using Commercial Agent, many of those quotes were coming from agents who were not familiar with commercial business. Initial agent response to the new solution has been overwhelmingly positive. Allstate proved, in this innovative project, that a user experience designed by agents, for agents paid huge dividends from the start. SMA Insights Allstate s Commercial Agent project succeeded because of four critical elements that together created the transformation. Focus on the goal and vision. Agent ease-of-use was the guiding principle for each decision point throughout the project. Allstate found creative ways to obtain and incorporate the agent feedback necessary to reach that goal, and Insurity s partnership approach and solution was consistently aligned to that end. Build next generation partnerships. Allstate and Insurity jointly partnered to establish clear and focused business and technology expectations to support the high quality delivery and intuitive software that met Allstate s needs. In doing so, they created a new and different partnership that produced amazing results. Create early champions. The advisory group of agents was instrumental in several respects: they provided the input Allstate needed for the user experience redesign, but they also solidified early buy-in and acted as early champions of the solution. The positive buzz that they generated and shared is expected to promote acceptance of Commercial Agent at the nationwide roll-out. Challenge the norm. The creative approach taken by Allstate and Insurity challenged their traditional norms for software development. With a laser focus on transforming the user experience and creating collaborative development teams using new and iterative methods, this approach enabled them to start fresh. Freed from their past experiences, Allstate and Insurity were able to execute a transformative development effort that met with major success as measured by the quality of the deliverables and agent acceptance with increased quoting activity. We want agents to be able to spend their time and energy selling our products and servicing our customers, not learning new systems. Matt King Senior Manager, Delivery & Information Management Allstate Business Insurance SMA All Rights Reserved Page 4

5 About Strategy Meets Action Exclusively serving the insurance industry, Strategy Meets Action (SMA) blends unbiased research findings with expertise and experience to deliver business and technology insights, research, and advice to insurers and IT solution providers. By leveraging best practices from both the management consulting and research advisory disciplines, SMA takes a unique approach offering an unrivaled set of services, including retainers, research, consulting, events, and innovation offerings. We are dedicated to helping the business of insurance modernize, optimize, and innovate for competitive advantage. This Case Study presents a synopsis of information provided by Allstate Insurance and Insurity in conjunction with SMA s observations, insights, and analysis. Insurity has purchased distribution rights for this SMA Case Study. For more information about SMA, visit SMA All Rights Reserved Page 5

About Allstate The Allstate Corporation (NYSE: ALL) is the largest publicly held personal lines property and casualty insurer in America, serving approximately 16 million households through its Allstate,

Innovative Approach to Enterprise Modernization Getting it Right with Data Featuring as an example: Insurity Insurance Enterprise View An Author: Karen Furtado, Partner Published Date: March, 2013 This

A New Day for Life and Annuities Solutions Achieving the SOA Vision Featuring as an example: FAST 8x and FAST Insurance Components An Authors: Deb Smallwood, Founder Mary Ann Garwood, Partner Published

The Modern Digital Platform: Unifying Transactions, Content, and Workflows There is real value for insurers that are able to effectively unify transactions, content, and workflows to holistically support

SLDS Workshop Summary: Data Use Developing a Data Use Strategy This publication aims to help states detail the current status of their State Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) data use strategy and identify

The Internet of Things: Connected Home, Auto, and Life An Author: Denise Garth, SMA Partner Published Date: November, 2014 SMA Summit A Connected Experience During the 2014 SMA Summit, and for a week and

CRM in Insurance: New Opportunities in the Digital Age Author: Mark Breading, SMA Partner Published Date: September, 2015 This sponsored white paper is based on SMA s ongoing research on the CRM and the

MARKETING AUTOMATION Benchmarks for Small & Medium Businesses What marketing automation success will look like in a year ahead and how how small and medium businesses plan to achieve it. Ascend2 Research

The DAM Maturity Model Digital Asset Management (DAM) is the collection of systems and processes that enable the management of assets from creation through distribution and archive. The DAM Maturity Model

How Insurers Can Use Collaboration for a Competitive Advantage Mark Breading SMA Partner Strategy Meets Action Table of Contents The Promise of Collaboration... 3 Seeking Differentiation in a New Environment...

MARKETING AUTOMATION Benchmarks from the Agency Perspective What marketing automation success will look like in a year ahead and how agencies plan to achieve it, based on a broad-range of client experience.

University of Wisconsin - Platteville UNIVERSITY WIDE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY STRATEGIC PLAN 2014 Strategic PRIORITIES 1 UNIVERSITY WIDE IT STRATEGIC PLAN ITS is a trusted partner with the University of

Best Practices From The Trenches Application development is a hot topic for senior leaders. Whether for business process improvements or for customer engagement, every enterprise is looking to innovate,

THE POWER OF INTEGRATED CONTENT AND PROCESS MANAGEMENT Vital for Insurers in the Digital Era SMA White Paper Author: Mark Breading, SMA Partner Publication Date: June, 2016 This white paper is based on

10 Critical Components for a Successful elearning Business presented by elearning is a Critical Business Strategy What Nonprofits and Associations Need to Know You have the content. You have the membership.

Overview Project Managing Business Process Improvement Initiatives Gina Abudi Business process improvement initiatives prove to be some of the more challenging projects for project managers. This is for

MARKETING AUTOMATION Benchmarks for small & medium businesses What marketing automation success will look like in a year ahead and how how small and medium businesses plan to achieve it. Ascend2 Research

Introduction What Every CEO Needs to Know About Portal Development by Rick Sidorowicz Many, if not most intranet portal development projects have fallen short of enterprise portal aspirations and promises

Maintenance Group Structure and Workflow Recommendations Submitted by: Project Management Office The following proposal describes a method for restructuring the Tactical Project/Maintenance Group. This

DENVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS EduStat Case Study Denver Public Schools: Making Meaning of Data to Enable School Leaders to Make Human Capital Decisions Nicole Wolden and Erin McMahon 7/19/2013. Title: Making Meaning

at USDA s Economic Research Service Gina Pearson, Economic Research Service (USDA) Chris Wolz, Forum One Communications Agenda About the Economic Research Service What is an Internet Strategic Plan? Internet

1 Overview LDAP Authentication Configuration Appendix Blackboard s authentication technology is considered a focal point in the company s ability to provide true enterprise software. Natively, the Blackboard

Successful CRM. Delivered. Prepare for CRM Success Our How to start right and stay right! ConsultCRM: Prepare for CRM Success Introduction ConsultCRM has years of experience in the area of Customer Relationship

Agile Master Data Management A Better Approach than Trial and Error A whitepaper by First San Francisco Partners First San Francisco Partners Whitepaper Executive Summary Market leading corporations are

Simplifying the audit through innovation Simplifying the audit through innovation New performance Smoother workflows and stronger collaboration New clarity Consistent execution and greater visibility New

Enhancing productivity, enabling Success. Sage CRM Customer Relationship Management Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is far more than just a software application. It is a business solution that gives

Allen Bonde Group White Paper A Management Consulting and Strategic Advisory Firm March 2005 Making Self-Service Work: the Critical Role of Content This ABG White Paper has been developed with RightAnswers,

Kea Analyst Relations Industry analysts play a key role in defining markets and educating buyers. We work with clients to identify and track the most influential and relevant industry analysts, and advise

Modern Marketing Transformation How Five Tenets of Modern Marketing Can Help Health Insurance Marketplaces Successfully Meet Their Enrollment Objectives HOW WILL YOU CONVERT HEALTH CARE APPLICATIONS TO

How to Lead a CRM Planning Workshop APracticalGuideforLaunchingaSuccessfulCRMInitiative www.ismsystems.com 2008IntegratedSalesManagement Page1 Why Hold a CRM Planning Workshop? Challenge: You are buying

WHITE PAPER EMR BIG BOX DISSATISFACTION Pushes Demand for Specialty Specific Systems ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL General Practice EMR Dissatisfaction Pushes ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL Due to the unique needs

CASE STUDY Usability Test of a Siemens Premium Ultrasound System With over 160 years of innovation, Siemens Healthcare is one of the world s largest suppliers of technology to the healthcare industry and

Companies that use a demand generation technology reported 181% higher average close rates. 5 Five Core Principles for Empowering Sales Reps with Demand Generation Tools The crisis in the financial market

About this article: Agencies using commercial lines real-time rating are saving enormous numbers of keystrokes and time. This article shows the progress that is being made in commercial lines real-time

Leveraging UX Insights to Influence Product Strategy Frank Guo, PhD Many UX researchers and analysts aspire to influencing not only design implementation, but also product strategy. However, it is rather

12 Questions to ask before beginning your website redesign About the Author Dallas McMillan is the founder and CEO of Influential. He has spent over 10 years mastering marketing, branding and website design

Powering Marketing Transformation The Five Tenets of Modern Marketing in Financial Services and Insurance Targeting Engagement Conversion Analytics Marketing Technology THE FIVE TENETS OF MODERN MARKETING

White Paper High Value Data and Analytics: Building a Platform for Growth What s hidden in your data? Analyze, realize and optimize the possibilities. Created by industry experts, this publication is the

The IconProcess: A Web Development Process Based on RUP Katherine Marshak IconMedialab, Director of Process Development Katherine.Marshak@IconMedialab.com Agenda» The legacy of web development processes

Five Core Principles of Successful Business Architecture STA Group, LLC Revised: May 2013 Executive Summary This whitepaper will provide readers with important principles and insights on business architecture

Enterprise Project Management SOLUTIONS THAT LAST Challenges in PPM What is a Project? Why Project Management? Challenges in Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) Problems for PM and PPM Leaders Presentation

Field Service in the Cloud: Solving the 5 Biggest Challenges of Field Service Delivery The ServiceMax Whitepaper Executive Summary The time has come for field service organizations to also reap the benefits

MORE INFORMATION: To learn more about the EMA Service Catalog, please contact the EMA Business Development team at +1.303.543.9500 or enterpriseit@enterprisemanagement.com The IT Service Catalog Aligning

Enhancing Productivity. Enabling Success. Sage CRM Customer Relationship Management Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is far more than just a software application. It is a business solution that gives

Assembling a Next Generation Enterprise Web Infrastructure with Drupal and Acquia For the Site Architect Table of Contents Executive Summary.... 3 It s Currently a Mess.... 4 But Wait, It Gets Worse....

Success strategies for avoiding common pitfalls of health care CRM implementation Health plan leaders need a customer relationship management (CRM) system to help them manage the multitude of challenges

Mastering Commercial Lines Automation Balancing Art and Science This Research Brief looks at advances that are being made in the automation of commercial lines. Today there are new opportunities to capitalize

Book 3 of 4 HOW A CRM SOLUTION HELPS SMALL BUSINESSES PART OF THE CRM SUCCESS SERIES Introduction LEARNING ABOUT CRM Technology has changed the game for small businesses. Where department size was once

Jabil builds momentum for business analytics Transforming financial analysis with help from IBM and AlignAlytics Overview Business challenge As a global electronics manufacturer and supply chain specialist,

A Systematic Approach to Business Process Improvement A Systematic Approach There are experts that help organizations improve productivity through a variety of techniques. Business process analysis and

Ten Ways to Generate Higher Returns from Your Innovation Investments Next Copyright Sopheon plc. All rights reserved worldwide. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial

THE DAM DECISION TOOLKIT [CHECKLIST, PROGRESS TRACKER, PRICING CALCULATOR] The ultimate guide to help you find the right digital asset management solution. v1.2-08-27-2014 Contents Introduction Where to

INSURANCE IMPERATIVE: MOBILITY STRATEGIES FOR INSURERS by Gordana Radmilovic with contributions by Greg Layok and John Sprunger One billion consumers will have smartphones by 2016. Business spending on

WRITTEN BY: SUMAIR DUTTA, CHIEF CUSTOMER OFFICER MAY 2014 Page 2 of 7 SUMMARY Customer service is king. For most organizations, this is no longer just a marketing tagline but is a mantra that governs how

Wilhelmenia Ravenell IT Manager Eli Lilly and Company Agenda Introductions The Service Management Framework Keys of a successful Service management transformation Why transform? ROI and the customer experience

Ratabase Powerful, innovative rating simplified From generating price quotes to modeling new classes of risk, insurance rating moves at the speed of the Internet. To be competitive, insurance companies

PIVOTAL CRM CRM that does what you want it to do BROCHURE THE PIVOTAL CRM PHILOSOPHY THE PIVOTAL ADVANTAGE Today s business world is a fast moving and dynamic environment one in which your teams expect